The Rabbit Hutch

by Tess Gunty

Half my life, I have been waiting for someone to yell: Action. The other half, I have been waiting for someone to yell: Cut. All my life, I have been cute. These conditions make you selfish, and America knows them well.

city. It’s clear to him that she would be happier in a different species.

For a moment, they hesitate in the dark hallway. After hours, the entire high school feels like a set to Tiffany, insisting on the fraudulence of everything that occurs there. The sports, the calculations, the dissections, the assemblies on drunk driving, the fire drills, the chicken tenders, the virginity gossip, the imitation friendships. Nothing counts. It’s all sudoku, a controlled experiment, a relentless series of practice tests. Tiffany conceives of her peers as baby predators, biting and scratching in the den while their mother hunts. She wants something—anything—to count but is also emboldened by the conviction that nothing possibly can.

That a place called Lover’s Hollow existed within a place called Chastity Valley gave Blandine some hope about human resilience in the face of human brutality.

Her job never allowed her to be a child, so her psychology never allowed her to age.